The Blog

Exodus Again Refers Supporters to Discredited Statistician

Blogger Brady of “Some Guys Are Normal” first noticed on June 14 that Exodus was distributing propaganda by long-discredited “researcher” Paul Cameron.

Cameron runs an antigay propaganda service called the “Family Research Institute,” based in Colorado Springs. Cameron was kicked out of several professional scientific organizations for distorting other researchers’ work and for distorting his own research to achieve predetermined antigay outcomes. Since then, his organization’s fraudulent propaganda has grown increasingly incendiary, earning it notoriety as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Exodus and other antigay groups under the Focus on the Family umbrella know that Cameron’s work is consistently fraudulent — that Cameron may credibly be viewed as a Fred Phelps with revoked academic credentials.

But Exodus seems to be increasing, rather than decreasing, its reliance upon fraudulent and incendiary propagandists:

After Brady noticed the Exodus “media blog” promoting already-discredited falsehoods about same-sex-attracted individuals’ life expectancy on June 13, Exodus did it again July 7.

This time, Exodus promotes a Cameron attack against anti-AIDS funding. Out of thin air, Cameron claims that AIDS costs Americans $51 billion per year, and he compares that to the $168 billion that the CDC says is spent by society to battle the effects of smoking.

Cameron bases his subsequent claim that AIDS costs each gay male American $25,000 per year on the belief that 1) AIDS is a gay disease, and 2) no more than two million men in the U.S. are sexually active with other men.

Cameron calculates those numbers by using the lowest possible number of gay Americans, derived from a 1996 CDC study whose count of gay Americans was lowest of any reputable study yet conducted: 1.3 percent. Other surveys have found two, three, or even five to eight percent depending on how each survey defines homosexuality and bisexuality, and how each survey is conducted (via mail, via door-to-door interviews in front of antigay family members and strangers, via telephone, and so forth).

(Given a politically motivated, lowball estimate that there are only 2 million gay men in America, it is remarkable that Exodus still claims it has delivered “hundreds of thousands” of people from homosexuality.)

Cameron then makes the absurd suggestion — not linked to any specific portion of the CDC survey, nor supported by a presentation of the statistic’s context — that 34 percent of all gay workers miss a day of work per month, versus an alleged 19 percent of the general population.

Cameron concludes that homosexuals are freeloaders, leeches upon hardworking society, and requires readers to obtain copies of his oddly described “scientific journal” in order to review his claims.

Exodus reprinted Cameron’s diatribes in full, without a trace of fact-checking, math calculation, or comparison to other surveys. And there is no indication that Exodus has offered anyone in reputable scientific communities an opportunity to respond.

Mike Airhart was the founding editor of Ex-Gay Watch, until he left in 2007. He has returned as a contributing writer. He has written periodically for Truth Wins Out, and volunteered for Men Can Stop Rape, Whitman-Walker Clinic, WaterFire Providence, and the Providence Equality Action Committee. His background includes expertise in journalism, business news, content syndication, human rights, sexual harassment issues, and liberation theology.